Human - AN ORIGINAL STORY, NOT A FANFICTION
by michadamianut
Summary: Set in a world where human cloning is the norm, after nearly four years of debating the Supreme Court has ruled the creation and harvesting of clones unconstitutional. Clones held in harvesting facilities are released and sent to live in shelters or with foster families. But, not everyone agrees with the Supreme Court's ruling.
1. Preface & Chapter 1- The News

"Good morning, Bellevue, I'm Georgia Quincy with the morning news. The long-awaited answer is finally here. The Supreme Court has come to the decision that as of today, the funding and owning of human clones is no longer constitutional. In the coming weeks, clones will be released from their facilities and into the world. Citizens who own clones will be reimbursed by the government. If you would like to foster a clone, please contact the number on your screen now. That's all we have for today, now to Pharra with the weather."

Rona

Each morning is relatively the same around here. We wake up when the nurses come in, they give us our injections and apologize about the needle, though we'd lost any and all feeling in the injection sites long ago. My nurse's name is Marianna, a beautiful name for a beautiful woman that I have grown to love. I wish I could have a beautiful name, but Rona is what I'm stuck with. Marianna once had two children – twin girls, around my age she says – and a husband who drank a little too much, but was a good man. Before she came to work here, they were killed in a car accident on a rainy night. Some of the nurses live here with us, and I'm thankful that Marianna is one of them, though it hurts me that she lost her family. The nurses, doctors, scientists, and other workers call this place the facility. After injections, the other girls in my room and I dress ourselves and head to breakfast together. There are 3 other girls in my room – Ophelia, Phoebe, and Lynx. They're the closest things I've ever had to a family.

Everyone here is fully aware of our purpose in this place. We eat the food they give us, accept the injections because there is no other option, we keep ourselves healthy and then eventually we are shipped off to be spare parts for another person. This other person is the one we were cloned for – we call them our original. These people paid for us to be created, to be used as spare parts if they get hurt or need an organ transplant. Around here, they feed us the bull crap that we're being given a sense of purpose but honestly, we're being raised like pigs for slaughter. It's kind of sad how nonchalant everyone is about it. I suppose we've learned over time that it serves you no good to show fear. After all, it isn't so bad. Ophelia, Phoebe, Lynx, and I are lucky, our nurse is kind. There are others here who have not been so lucky.

As we headed to breakfast like usual, Marianna watched us with sad eyes. I chose not to ask what was wrong and followed quickly behind Lynx. The cafeteria was roaring with chatter – not unusual for this early in the morning. There was a different kind of atmosphere in the room, though. Normally, everyone was calm and apathetic about everything. Today, people smiled and glanced around the room with excited eyes. As I made my way to the food line I tried my best to overhear anything that would make sense of the excitement. "Did you hear the news?" A boy asked the girl sitting beside him with wide eyes. She shook her head curiously and waited for him to explain what the news was.

"Earth to Rona." Lynx's voice quickly snapped me back to where I was. "Are you okay?" She asked gently. Lynx was, without a doubt in my mind, the best person in the world. She had gentle green eyes and curly brown hair that flowed just past her shoulders. I've never seen her original – no one's ever seen their original – but I can't imagine that she's nearly as beautiful as Lynx. I nodded and asked, "Have you noticed that everyone seems different today?" She looked around the room curiously, scrunching her nose a bit. "A little, yes. I wonder what everyone is so energetic about."

"Next." The cafeteria woman called out, looking directly at me. I stepped up to the tall silver machine that resembled a thin soda fountain and held out one finger, palm up and waited. A short thin needle slowly came down from the machine and pricked the tip of my finger. I winced, I'll never understand how the injections have never bothered me but pricking my finger at each meal always will. I squeezed my finger and pressed my blood onto the scanner below the needle and waited as it beeped. The lunch lady watched as numbers I didn't quite understand popped up on the screen beside the machine, telling her which foods I need for this meal and which ones to avoid. She nodded at me before calling for the next person.

Once we each had our food and a seat, I desperately tried to eavesdrop on someone, anyone, around us to try and figure out what we were missing. "Rona, just eat. You're creeping me out." I shot a look at Phoebe, who didn't even wait for me to react to what she'd said. As I began to eat, Doctor Felickson, the one in charge of the entire facility, stepped up to the podium at the far end of the cafeteria. Usually when Felickson was at the podium, she was announcing someone that had been "called", meaning it was time for them to be spare parts for their original. The entire cafeteria fell silent as soon as she stepped up, only the sound of heavy, shaky breathing could be heard throughout the room. Even the lunch ladies and those who were scanning to get their food froze in place, watching her, and waiting. Felickson was a beautiful woman, tall and slender with white-blonde hair and plump lips. Today she wore a royal blue dress and her white doctor's coat, her hair in a neat and perfect bun, and her lips painted a powerful red that accentuated her perfect white teeth. Normally she smiled wide, excited for us to go off and fulfill our purpose. But today, her expression was blank as she leaned slightly forward and said into the microphone, "Good morning, everyone. Today I have a very new and unexpected announcement. As of yesterday, the Supreme Court has ruled the creating and harvesting of clones unconstitutional, and therefore, illegal."

Throughout the room people gasped and began whispering to one another furiously. Ophelia and Phoebe grabbed each other's hands while Lynx simply covered her mouth in shock. Felickson waited for a moment before requesting silence. "Beginning tomorrow morning," she said, "You will each be leaving here in buses to be taken to a shelter. There, those of you who are being placed in foster homes will be picked up by your foster family and those who are not will remain there until a new foster home opens up or you reach the age of majority." It was clear she was trying to keep her composure, but she was beyond furious over the ruling. Not that I can blame her, really. This woman has spent her whole life building the facility – and building us – and now the government can just decide that it needs to be shut down. "Please take today to say your goodbyes, as tomorrow morning you will each be leaving. Thank you." Felickson stepped down from the podium with grace, despite how her voice shook.

At first there was only excited chatter throughout the room, which then grew into cheering and applause. We were getting out, we would have real lives. We would get to meet people that were born and not cloned, people that are not doctors or nurses poking us like science experiments, but real people. Though it's rather intimidating, I couldn't help but feel excited.


	2. Chapter 2-Family

Jett

My mother ran around the room frantically, cleaning and dusting, setting things up. I watched in annoyance. "Why are we fostering a clone again?" She didn't stop what she was doing, or even look at me for that matter, but I knew she had rolled her eyes. "Because, Jett. There is a clone who has lived her entire life in a box being poked and prodded like a lab rat and she deserves a family." I leaned against the door frame and folded my arms. "Mom, she doesn't even have a real name it's just numbers." She leaned over the bed to tuck a folded sheet below the mattress, perfectly the first try. I can never seem to figure out how to put a folded sheet on and my mother makes it look like the easiest thing in the world. Finally, she looked up at me.

"I spoke with one of the doctors, they're given names by their nurses. They just use the numbers because the names aren't on any official paperwork." I raised my eyebrows at her and looked down at the letter we got in the mail again. It thanked us for our service in choosing to foster and told us about our clone. A girl, 17 years old, red hair and blue eyes. It described her a little more, and then there were about 10 numbers that looked random, but really, they represented her. Like my name on a birth certificate, hers were numbers that looked like nothing more than a phone number or a bar code.

Suddenly, my mother stopped what she was doing, dropped her arms, and looked at me, letting out a big sigh. "Please, Jett. I need you and Juno to be welcoming to this poor girl. We have no idea what she'll be like, if she's ever even had human interaction before." I tossed the letter on the desk and looked at her, exasperated. "That's my problem, mom. We don't know what she'll be like and she's going to sleep in our house. She could be a psycho, she might attack us. What if she doesn't even know how to speak?" She looked at me with those motherly eyes, the kind that could get you to do anything she asked. "She needs us, Jett. Besides, she's the same age as you and Juno. Maybe you'll all be friends." At that point I couldn't help but feel like a terrible son, and a terrible person. My mom was just doing what a mom does – reaching out to a child in need. I gave her a soft smile and offered to help finish setting up the clone's room. She smiled and nodded, thanking me.

That night at dinner, my father discussed with my mother the clone we were going to be bringing home the next day. He's head of security at the facility housing the clones, and apparently has met her once or twice. He said she's kind but nosy, curious, and almost rebellious. Though she's never actually done anything wrong, he can just tell that about her. I rolled my eyes at his suspiciousness and turned my attention to my sister, who was furiously texting on her cell phone. "Can you believe we're bringing home a clone tomorrow?" She didn't even look up at me, she just shrugged. "Juno, just because we're twins doesn't mean I can actually read your mind." Laughing, she looked at me and said, "You're silly. I wouldn't worry about it, I think it sounds interesting. Plus, we'll finally get to know what goes on in the facility since it's always been such a big secret." It was true, the facility was considered an almost taboo thing to talk about around here. Nearly everyone was okay with the cloning and harvesting, I suppose putting a price on a human being made them less human to the people of this town.

"Do we get to know who she's a clone of?" Juno asked my parents suddenly, still clutching her pink cell phone in her thin hands, interrupting their conversation. My mother looked at her sternly. "Now, Juno, when she gets here tomorrow we need to be open-minded and sensitive. We can't treat her like an alien." She said. "But we can't treat her like a clone?" Juno shot back. My father put down his silverware and furrowed his brow at her. "That's what she is!" She exclaimed. Both of my parents sighed in unison. "Juno, darling," my father began, "it's just not something we need to talk about to her. She's aware that she's a clone but the only people she's ever been in contact with are other clones and those who work in the facility." Juno stared at my father as if nothing he said mattered, nothing he could say will change the fact that in her eyes, this girl is a clone of someone. Quite possibly someone that we already know. "Coming here and being in the outside world will already be a bit of a culture shock for her. We can't drown her in questions when she arrives." Juno nodded in understanding, but more-so that she understands there's no point in trying to argue with our father.

"Thane," my mother said softly, placing her hand on his arm. "will you be alright when she arrives tomorrow?" My father closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before looking her intensely in the eyes. "Ixabel, dear. This clone," he paused for a moment. "this girl, sorry. She needs us. And we're going to be there for her. As a family," he said looking at each of us around the table. "we will do this as a family." My sister offered my dad a sideways half smile before excusing herself and heading to her room. My parents held hands and smiled at each other. For a moment, I was content with the way things were headed.

The next morning I was awake early, before the sun even rose. I had agreed to go with my mother to pick up the clone from the shelter they were being transported to. It was an hour drive and my mother was convinced we needed to beat the bus there, otherwise she would think we had abandoned her before we even had her. My father had to work the transport of the clones and asking Juno to come along was just out of the question, so I chose to support my mother on this stressful day, refusing to let her do it alone. When my mother and I got into the car the sun barely began to shine thin rays of light over the horizon. The drive was about an hour long and she didn't like to listen to music in the car, she thought it was a distraction. Last night I had hardly slept, I was tossing and turning and all I could think about was my parents and why they're choosing to foster a clone. It's not like we need the money from the government, but we also can't really afford the extra mouth and space. As it is, my mother's small office had to suffice as a bedroom. Although, I'm sure this girl has never known any different and won't mind it.

After about twenty minutes of driving I bucked up enough courage to look at my mom and say, "Mom, you know that you and Dad don't need to feel guilty, right?" She didn't look away from the road but her shoulders tensed and her breath caught. "You don't owe anyone anything, Mom." She took a moment to respond, I couldn't tell if she was carefully choosing her words or if I had upset her. "Your father and I are not doing this out of pity or for redemption, Jett." I could hear her voice shaking and my regret was nearly instant. It wasn't fair of me to bring up something to my mom that has haunted her and my father for 15 years. "Like we said yesterday, this girl needs a home and that's what we're going to give her. What kind of people would we be if we had the means to help and didn't? This is not a way to clear a conscience, son, I assure you." I nodded and apologized for bringing it up.

The rest of the drive was silent, but it gave me plenty of time to think about the girl we were heading to bring home. Are we going to make her go to high school? Will she go to school with Juno and I, or will there be a school for clones? Sending her to school is probably worse than leaving her in the facility. What if I know who she's cloned after? It's someone who lives in Washington, as all the clones in each state are kept in one facility, but that doesn't necessarily mean I know her. I wondered idly about her as we pulled up to a large, brick building that looked like an old warehouse.


End file.
